Brief Report: Socioeconomic Factors Associated with Minimally Verbal Status in Individuals with ASD
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BRIEF REPORT
Brief Report: Socioeconomic Factors Associated with Minimally Verbal Status in Individuals with ASD Nell Maltman1 · Leann Smith DaWalt1 · Jinkuk Hong1 · Marsha Mailick1
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract About 30% of adults with autism are minimally verbal. Past research suggested that after age five, few gain verbal fluency, but studies have rarely investigated whether family environmental factors contribute to the acquisition of verbal fluency. The present study utilized data from the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised to compare changes in verbal fluency for 404 individuals with autism from childhood to adolescence and adulthood. Socioeconomic factors were examined across fluency groups (i.e., those who did/did not achieve verbal fluency). Findings indicated that fully 60% of those who were minimally verbal in early childhood acquired verbal fluency in adolescence and adulthood. Parent socioeconomic status differed across fluency groups, suggesting the importance of environmental factors for individual development. Keywords ASD · Minimally verbal · SES · ADI-R · Lifespan development Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a heterogeneous neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by social communication deficits and patterns of restricted and repetitive behavior. The average age of first words for individuals with ASD is approximately 36 months, in contrast to the expected onset at around 18 months, making expressive language delay the most common reason parents of individuals with ASD seek diagnostic and clinical services (De Giacomo and Fombonne 1998; Franchini et al. 2018). Individuals with ASD who have few to no functional words are considered minimally verbal (Kasari et al. 2013; Koegel et al. 2020) and an estimated 30% of individuals with ASD are classified as such during adulthood (Tager-Flusberg and Kasari 2013; Rose et al. 2016). However, despite this substantial subgroup of individuals with ASD, their inclusion in research studies is limited and currently little is known about what factors might relate to persistence versus change in limitations in functional communication in adulthood. Most prior work regarding acquisition of verbal abilities for individuals with ASD has focused on the time period up to age five, and language skills by age five have been shown to be predictive of outcomes in adulthood (Howlin 2005; * Leann Smith DaWalt [email protected] 1
Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1500 Highland Ave., Madison, WI 53705, USA
Magiati et al. 2014). For instance, Magiati et al. (2014) systematically reviewed longitudinal studies of individuals with ASD, and noted that almost all studies reported that language abilities at five years old predicted later language gains, adaptive behavior, ASD severity, and social outcomes in adulthood. A range of individual factors may differentiate children with ASD who are minimally verbal from those who are verbally fluent. For instance, studies have observed deficits in motor skills (Bal et
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